Alexander Lyadov

From Before to After / May 4, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

How do you know you've changed? It feels strange to remember that you couldn’t decide to do something you now do freely, joyfully, and easily. “Was that really me? What was stopping me? Why did I hesitate for so long?”

Between the "before" and "after," there’s a vast chasm. It’s like jumping out of an airplane or having sex for the first time. You understand that others do it, but you can’t even imagine yourself in it.

In the process of transition, it’s important not to rush but also not to slow down. I had to jump off a bungee bridge twice. The first time, the instructors emotionally pushed me. My body jumped, but my soul stayed at the top. The second jump, I did on my terms and at my own pace.

By forcing the natural process, you only get form without substance. Change grows from the inside out, not imposed from the top down.

In one of my businesses, I stayed too long, even though the vision and priorities of my partners were diverging more and more. But as a co-founder, I convinced myself that I could get used to it or change their minds.

The Buddhists are right: resistance to the inevitable is the source of suffering and loss. Your snake needs to shed its skin in time.

Do you want to make your transition from point A to point B safe and fruitful? Provide the necessary conditions:

A dedicated time and space for metamorphosis.
A proven structure and sequence of actions.
A witness to change — someone who has been through it and lived it.

The last one is critical if the scale of the change takes your breath away.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.

What's In the Sand? / May 3, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

What could be more mundane than beach sand? Even if it’s from the island of Mallorca. But what if I suggested you dig into it? You’d probably refuse: “How boring! I’m not three years old!”

German macro photographer Ole Bielfeldt thinks differently. What appeared to be a uniform mass turned out to be a palette of different colors and shapes. There are shells, corals, quartz, and plastic—everything you could imagine.

A careful gaze seemed to free beauty and meaning from their captivity.

The photographer could have walked right past it, like everyone else, but something intrigued him. What? A mystery. A promise. The potential of what could be. Or not.

To capture that fleeting interest and not devalue it immediately—that’s what matters. Not to be lazy and grab a handful of sand from Mallorca, only to place it under a microscope back home in Germany. And see the universe.

This is the Creator’s gaze—full of interest, awe, and recognition. It’s no wonder that the prima materia is eager to reveal all its secrets to him.

When someone looks at you like that, your soul opens in response. It’s like a plant in the deep forest, eagerly reaching toward the sun. The sun’s energy turns into glucose, needed for growth. Photosynthesis is life.

Personality blooms when it meets a blessing gaze. Too bad it’s rare. Someone had to light the sun yesterday so it could warm you today.

And why? So your gaze can ignite change in someone tomorrow.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Relating to the Fire Within / May 2, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

"Homo erectus" learned to control fire 1.5 million years ago. For today's city dweller, fire has become something familiar and safe, like the tiny flame in a lighter or a gas stove.

The true meaning of fire is only recalled when a disaster strikes, like the recent wildfires in California. One is overcome with a sense of encountering the numinous — a sacred awe and terror.

Arrogant politicians displayed negligence and carelessness. Fire taught its lesson — every phenomenon has a dual nature. Especially one that, according to myth, humanity either stole or received from the gods.

In much the same way, Western culture has trivialized and undervalued the sacred fire within each of us. In the past, people built safe relationships with it through rituals and ceremonies. Modern man has almost returned to the Paleolithic, facing the elements alone without any means to protect himself.

It’s no surprise that more and more people suffer from mental disorders, addictions, depression, mania, and phobias. If you ignore the flame, you’re guaranteed to suffer burns or frostbite.

What is this Fire? Carl Jung introduced the concept of the Self. The Self is the source of energy and meaning, the center of the personality, encompassing both the conscious and the unconscious. Many cultures had their own equivalents: Atman, Tao, Guardian Spirit, the Image of God, the Philosopher’s Stone, and many others.

The imbalance in the world is deepening. People continue to develop technologies to control atoms and bytes, but at the same time, they are losing the ability to control themself.

What should you do? Rebuild your relationship with the Fire within you.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Unlock the Flow / May 1, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

How to accelerate what you believe is slowing down or holding back? It doesn’t matter where — in a project, an organization, yourself, or another person.

One option is to make it hurry using temptation or force. The result is quick, but the cost is high. Violence and deceit won’t be forgotten, and one day, they will come back to you.

What’s the alternative? Try to understand the struggling process. The very fact of your impatience means a gap between your inflated expectations and what is. Something important remains hidden from you.

Something is waiting for your attention to reveal its true interest behind the resistance to you. The paths to achieving noble goals are so twisted that even looking in that direction feels terrifying and repulsive.

Who is finding it hard to look? You.

Why? Something is stopping you.

What exactly? Your beliefs that A is good and B is unacceptable.

What if you were wrong? I hope you’re not an all-knowing God. What if the repellent facade is guarding the Holy Grail — the source of harmony, wealth, and wisdom?

By slightly changing your perception, you stop blocking the flow. Your project accelerates on its own, business grows, energy flows, and co-creation with others becomes more and more fruitful.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Don't Push the Tempo / April 30, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

In 2001, Fatboy Slim released the music video for his song "Ya Mama." Various people casually play this song, and suddenly, they begin to move uncontrollably, spreading madness and chaos around them.

This video has always intrigued me, but only yesterday did I realize why.

It’s a vivid illustration of how people become possessed (in religious terms), consumed by archetypes (in psychoanalytic terms), or fall into psychosis (in psychiatric terms).

Carl Jung believed that within each of us, there are mighty objective forces. Objective in the sense that they owe us nothing and pursue their own interests.

Sometimes our goals align with theirs, and sometimes they don’t — then beware!

Psychologist Robert Moore often reminds us in his lectures that archetypes are aggressive and imperialistic, meaning each one longs to claim you entirely. The question is not whether your archetypes are active in your life, but how. The less aware you are of them, the more you dance to their tune.

The overpowering desire for power, alcohol, gambling, cleanliness, isolation, violence, control, promiscuous sex, or relentless work — all these are the consequences of twitching when the archetype beats the drum.

One function of humor is to help society recognize a frightening phenomenon and develop an attitude toward it. The video does this perfectly. At first, it was funny, but then it wasn’t.

The task is to study the "rose of the winds" within yourself with interest and respect.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Clear Yet Unclear / April 29, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

Entrepreneurs often complain about problems with their teams. Some can’t find talent. Others are tired of the infighting among “stars.” But the biggest complaints are about the low agency:

The team is not autonomous and needs constant supervision.
No one takes responsibility or they shift it onto others.
Everyone waits for someone else to make a decision.
Breakthrough ideas are not being proposed.
There’s no initiative.

The founder says, “I’d be happy to share the power, but with whom?” Why does this happen? One reason is that autonomy, initiative, and creativity have not been valued as core principles. For example, the company once obtained or created a monopoly, or its niche developed like the “rubber boom” in Peru.

In the past, the team was expected to execute flawlessly, with no room for error. As a result, the corporate body has taken its current form. The business is perfect for an era that has already passed.

The team urgently needs to change its approach, but for some reason, they don’t. The founder pushes them, flatters them, and threatens them, but there’s no response.

The problem is that the founder stands alone at the tip of the spear. With the highest motivation and the broadest perspective, the founder has long recognised and adapted to the tectonic changes. Everything is clear to him — the timing, the seductive prospects, and the nightmare of inaction.

So what should the founder do? Speak the “obvious” out loud.

This means clarifying the parameters of the 'journey' — where it's starting from, where it's going, how, and most importantly, what for. It’s amusing that when the founder shares what’s clear to him, it turns out that there’s still much to clarify.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Opposites Within Us / April 28, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

Suppose you are the embodiment of Eternal Motion. You constantly measure distance and speed. Your medals for breaking records no longer fit on the wall. Progress excites you like an aphrodisiac.

How would you respond to a representative of Absolute Stillness?

His values don't just oppose yours—they provoke a full-scale Ragnarök, the final battle between chthonic monsters and gods. Of course they do: for you, a pause, stillness, and paralysis are death.

What are the chances you could understand each other? Zero.

That means nothing new can emerge. When like meets like, the world becomes sterile. A royal dynasty collapses when it practices incest.

So when does synthesis, not decay, happen?

Only in one case—when the apostle of Eternal Motion acknowledges the "dirty stain" of Absolute Stillness within himself. And vice versa.

We understand the new and the unknown only through association with something old and familiar. Learning something new is an act of recognition. It happens by finding a shared trait between two different things.

When light finds a drop of darkness within itself, the dance of day and night begins.

A workaholic, for example, might be shocked to discover that injections of Absolute Stillness boost his productivity tenfold. Meanwhile, a reclusive intellectual may find unexpected joy while planting the seedlings of shared ideas in the soil.

If you want your Work to thrive, first unite the polarities within yourself.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

The Art of Transition / April 27, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

Every day, after a hot shower, I finish with a blast of cold water. It’s an uncomfortable but valuable ritual. The body wakes up. The mind clears. Icy heat spreads through the capillaries.

Sometimes the contrast is so sharp that it cramps a muscle between my shoulder blades. What’s the solution? Create an in-between state. The water must be neither freezing nor hot. Ambivalence. Neither one thing nor the other.

Transition formula: Flame → Uncertainty → Ice.

Even a few seconds in this liminal space allow the body to adapt and make the transition from state A to state B. A simple daily situation, yet it offers an insight for business and life.

Not all transitions are smooth. Sometimes the gap between levels of growth is so great that a person—or a company—locks up:

you cling to what you already have,
devalue what you actually want,
demand guarantees from fate that everything will go well,
drown yourself in “important” busywork to stall for time,
chase deceptively easy shortcuts that lead nowhere,
endlessly wait for the perfect moment to change,
and sometimes the pain stops you halfway.

You already know the solution—create a special state:

neither here nor there,
an eclipse of the sun and moon,
a moment both inside and outside of time,
the space between an inhale and an exhale,
the silence before the first crash of thunder,
the Nothing out of which Something is born.

But there’s one condition: you must calmly hold the tension of opposites. It’s a rare skill. Most people can’t handle it. They collapse into extremes. That’s why people and organizations get stuck, suffer unnecessarily, change too late—or sometimes never at all.

If time is still on your side, nurture this rare ability. Professionally, I have always been fascinated by transformation—in life and in business. I’ll continue sharing insights and mental fuel to help you grow.

If you—or someone you care about—are dangerously stuck and unable to step into a new state, the "Catalyst" session was created for exactly that.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Make the Void / April 26, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

Want to know how people and organizations block their own growth? They try to fight against the laws of the universe.

Take this example: a founder complains that he lacks opportunities—profitable clients, talented executives, access to capital. But while he craves the new, he refuses to give anything up in return.

What’s at stake is letting go of old beliefs. Like the hard shell of a crab, they once formed a protective armor around the business. For a long time, they served the founder well. But now, that shell is choking growth.

You wouldn’t expect a harvest by tossing an apple sapling on the side of the road, would you? No—you dig a hole deep enough to hold all the roots. New life follows the same law.

Is the new avoiding you? Have you cleared the space inside yet.

First there's Nothing. Then the Something.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Time to Hatch / April 25, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

The reason companies stop growing, teams fall apart, and founders burn out is a clash between the old form and the new one.

What’s so great about solid structure? It gives you protection, comfort, and other good things. But only for one specific kind of content inside—and within a specific context around it.

Take, for example, the hard calcium shell of a bird’s egg. It’s a perfect incubator: it shields the embryo from impact, bacteria, and dehydration; it holds a stable microclimate and lets in oxygen.

But that harmony doesn’t last forever.

Once the chick is fully developed, that same incubator becomes a prison. And here’s the wild part—the parents don’t help it break the shell. The chick has to do it alone. That’s how it proves it’s alive and ready. In doing so, it builds strength and triggers essential hormonal and neural mechanisms.

Same structure. Yesterday it was heaven. Today it’s hell.

What does that feel like in a company? Processes start to stall. People feel cramped, stifled, bored. Mobility drops. Vulnerability to "predators" goes up.

If the founder doesn’t see the real problem, he’ll usually:

Ignore the warning signs for a while
Keep patching the cracks in the shell
Bring in outside help for a pseudo-transformation

That last one is a ritual simulacrum—a performance of change with no real shift. The fire was lit, the drums were beating, but nothing old was released and nothing new was born.

Worse, the next day brings bitterness, despair, and cynicism.

Want your business to grow? Look at where you’re holding it back.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stinging Honey / April 24, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

We say “honey,” and we mean “bees.” We say “bees,” and we mean “honey.” You can’t choose one and forget the other.

Imagine a gnome who’s been terrified of insects since childhood. Especially the kind that fly, sting, and buzz. But here’s the catch: the only thing he eats is honey. Thankfully, his parents worked hard and left behind a large supply.

Everything was fine—until he licked the last jar clean. Now the sweet-toothed gnome faces a choice: terrifying fear or slow starvation.

Maybe his mind tries to bargain: roots aren’t that bad. But in the end, nature takes over, and the gnome goes to the bees with trembling hands.

And who knows—maybe once he gets to know them, he’ll stop panicking. He’ll start respecting their fierce will to protect what’s theirs. He’ll admire their ability to work all day long. Fear will be replaced by love.

Now switch the roles. The gnome is you. And instead of bees—it’s whatever annoys, repulses, or unsettles you the most. If you take a closer look at your “insects,” you might see how deeply they’re tied to what you love most.

And what if those bees have been chasing and stinging you all along only because you’ve been doing everything you can to stop them from pollinating the flower inside you?

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Enough of Function or Form / April 23, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

What matters more to you—form or function?

A decade in advertising taught me to worship aesthetics. I saw countless wow-ideas get ruined when marketers asked for “small changes”: “Change the font, make the logo bigger, blur the tone.”

Aesthetics is why you can’t confuse eroticism with pornography.

Then I spent twenty years working with entrepreneurs. They rebuilt companies, launched startups, and shipped products—all under the banner of “Good enough is good enough.”

A founder isn’t into masturbation. He wants real sex—with the Unknown.

Look around and you’ll see people split into two tribes: high fashion vs. tactical gear, Michelin dining vs. protein bar, feature film vs. commercial, bodybuilding vs. powerlifting, poodle vs. Malinois, poem vs. checklist, Aikido vs. MMA.

Stick with one too long and you develop tunnel vision. You start to dismiss the other: you worship function and sneer at form. Or the reverse.

But if you look closer, poetry does perform a function. Just not as obvious as a hair dryer manual. And tactical gear does have a style—its own kind of grace.

In alchemy, they believed the vessel and its contents were inseparable. The inner needed a very specific outer for transformation to succeed.

Harmony happens when function dances with form. And they spin so wildly, you forget which is which. And that’s okay. Because life can be taken apart—but it’s always lived as a whole.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Spellbreaker / April 22, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

Each of us carries demons inside. Call them what you will—fears, grudges, traumas, curses, or complexes. They don’t bring joy. They drain it. They gnaw on your nerves and suck your life dry.

So what can you do? The worst thing is not knowing they’re there. That’s when the demons dance freely. Under their spell, people do things so wild they later gasp, “That was monstrous! Was that really me?”

But once your eyes begin to open—once you glimpse the destruction they leave behind—you start to fight back. It’s a long, painful war. Eventually, you realize: even the sun can’t get rid of its own shadow.

You can’t look away. There’s nowhere to run. Killing them doesn’t work either. Is it hopeless?

No. There’s another way: You can simply be with your monster. No judgment. No panic. No rage. No fear. Just see it. Describe it as it is. Witness its being.

And if you can hold that gaze—really hold it—a strange miracle begins. One layer after another peels away. The monster is no longer cursed. And beneath it, stretching gently in the sunlight, is something very much alive.

You didn’t defeat it. You lifted the spell. Thus, you set yourself free.

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Your Inner Axis / April 21, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

This newsletter is my sacred ritual. Each day, there’s a time and place where I meet the unknown part of myself. There is no “content plan.” Every message to you begins with a blank page.

Sometimes, it’s uncomfortable. Time passes, and nothing comes. Sure, I could force myself and pick some “reasonable” topic. But that would break the ritual. The spark must come from within.

A psychoanalyst would say I’m building the Ego–Self axis.

The Ego is who we think we are. The conscious part. The Self is something bigger — the core of the psyche, the original wholeness, the source of the energy to be, to live, to create.

When the Self swallows the Ego, the person falls into psychosis. He loses his grip on who he is, becoming a puppet of clashing inner forces — archetypes. In a manic episode, he may declare: “I am God. I will save you all.”

But it also works the other way. When the Ego is cut off from the Self, the person forgets who he is and why he exists. His crown withers. His trunk cracks. The roots can't reach the water.

In a healthy psyche, the connection between Ego and Self is just right — not too far, not too close. The Ego turns to the Self for inspiration, strength, meaning — for living water.

Individuation is when the Ego and the Self play ping-pong.

And for that game to happen, you need a table. You need space. A net. A coach, maybe. You need to clear the crowd and so on.

So let me ask: Do you have a ritual that helps you meet yourself?

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

The Boar and the Baby / April 20, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

As an experiment, I want to share a dream I had a few years ago. I wasn’t sure if I should—but here goes.

Some people don’t dream at all. Others think dreams are nonsense. If you’re one of them, just imagine I’m describing a very weird short film.

Dreams are personal. Their meaning is often only clear to the one who receives them. And yet—they’re sent by archetypes, forces from the collective unconscious. So maybe, if you want, you’ll see a part of yourself in mine.

So here it goes:

“A grown-up baby offers to take me for a ride in his autonomous stroller. I refuse, saying I’ll break it because I weigh 90 kilos. The baby climbs in and starts skillfully wrapping himself in a sheet on the tray. At some point, I can’t resist and help him. Then I pick him up myself—or maybe I just sense that’s what he wants—and I rock him. He yawns sweetly.

The baby tells me I need to carry him through an ancient, abandoned graveyard nearby. I picture it and say, ‘No! I’m not taking you in there.’ Then I walk with him in my arms into some kind of corridor, tunnel, or dungeon. Suddenly, from around a corner, a huge wild boar appears. I run into another hallway and rush toward a windowsill, trying to save the baby. The boar is right behind me. I try to set the baby on the windowsill, but it doesn’t work.

So I turn to face the boar and try to scare him with my voice and the flashlight on my phone. It doesn’t faze him. He calmly stands there, watching me. He could easily kill both the baby and me.

A couple of times, darkness washes over me, and I’m filled with helplessness—like death itself has come. But then I notice that the boar seems to be friendly toward the baby. As if I didn’t know something, or had misunderstood everything.”

Dreams usually don’t have just one meaning, but many. For example, here we see a drama that exists—and also doesn’t. For some reason, I decided the boar was a predator, the baby was a helpless victim, and I was supposed to be the savior. Why did I decide that? That’s the question of all questions.

Then things just started unfolding on their own. So much effort, so many emotions. Hope and the loss of it. The collapse of the illusion that I could protect anyone. Total helplessness. I failed. Let everyone down.

And then... a flicker of insight. The beast wasn’t planning to devour the baby. The baby was never afraid. The boar just stood there. The baby kept sleeping. There was no drama. Come on, didn’t you get it?

The boar and the baby—they’re Friends. Buddies. Best pals.

And me? Just a fool. I made up an epic, dragged others into it, played my role with passion. The worst part? I’ve done it an endless number of times. Since childhood. Over and over, repeating the same ridiculous story.

It’s so sad, it’s almost funny.

If you heard someone laughing in the middle of the night in downtown Kyiv, that was me—right after I said yes to the AI’s offer: “Wanna see your dream as a picture?”

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Oh, That Leg Day! / April 19, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

It’s been a month since I hurt my knee. I walk around in a brace. Take it off—and I feel shaky. Put it back on—and I'm fine again.Healing ligaments need an “exoskeleton” to carry some of the load.

Muscles could do the job, if it weren’t for my laziness. There’s a reason Leg Day is a meme magnet—no one loves it. Don’t want to limp and wince with every step? Then hit the gym and suffer with that barbell on your back.

Same story with my forearm. For almost a year, I couldn’t grapple. Diagnosis: medial epicondylitis. I tried shots, pills, therapy—nothing worked. The pain only left when I finally strengthened my shoulders and back. That took the extra load off my elbows.

Now my forearms get special attention—I train them every other day.

Sadly, it took an injury to turn neglect into care. Next goal? Learn to love brutal leg workouts. There’s no other way.

Reality has its own way of fixing a stubborn mind: It teaches through pain and discomfort. Can you avoid that lesson? Sure—if you’ve got a wise health advisor by your side. Too bad — no expert with a broad enough view has made a useful offer yet.

So when it comes to the body, there’s only one real option— learn from your mistakes, and learn fast.

But these insights apply to business too—your “corporate body”:

Always know where your weakest spot is.
Give it a brace—time and support to heal.
And keep someone close who won’t let you skip leg day.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

The Entrepreneurial Journey Podcast / April 18, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

American entrepreneur Dave Wescott invited me for an interview on his podcast, The Entrepreneurial Journey.

WATCH NOW

In Dave's words:

"Not many times in your life, will you meet someone who changes your trajectory. My conversation with Alexander Lyadov did exactly that! Thank you so much for the conversation and changing the way I think about my life!!!"

It was both an honor and a real pleasure to speak with Dave.

First, like a true entrepreneur, he has that rare drive to get to the heart of things without getting distracted by surface-level noise.
Second, he doesn’t just ask deep, meaningful questions—he truly listens. That’s such a rare quality these days.
And third, it’s incredibly easy and fulfilling to share insights with him, because he receives them with both gratitude and respect.

Topics we touched on:

Where ideas come from—and how not to block them.
Why I call my work “business therapy.”
Why complex problems can’t be solved with a single tool.
What kinds of challenges business therapy can actually help with.
What happens when a founder meets the unknown.
What a “liminal state” is, and the role of ancient rituals.
The existential loneliness of founders.
The horns of the entrepreneurial dilemma.
Three “clusters” of symptoms caused by that dilemma.
How I went from $50m fund management to jungle ayahuasca.
What 11 ceremonies taught me — and what I’m still digesting.
Mind games and the difficulty of asking for help.
Why psychedelics should be combined with therapy.
What six years of individual and group therapy actually changed.
The #1 insight Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gave me for business.
Why I work specifically with founders and CEOs.
What the painting on my wall says about the meeting of Logos and Chaos.
What a founder should do first when they’re stuck.
Why an honest look at your current and undesired future is essential.
The existential challenge of describing your desired future state.
Why strategy sessions often waste time and resources.
Who must answer the ultimate question in business.
Understanding the hierarchy of strategic questions.
Different formats of business therapy.

Some timestamps:

[00:05:43] - What a business therapist does.
[00:10:54] - The existential loneliness of founders.
[00:19:00] - The Ayahuasca experience.
[00:27:32] - Insights from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for business.
[00:34:35] - What entrepreneurs should do when they’re stuck.
[00:39:39] - Why gold is always found in the mud.
[00:43:53] - If someone wants to work with me.

Hope you enjoy it!

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Where Are All the Adults? / April 17, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

Princess Yvonne and Prince Alexander of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn in Germany, 1955

Over the years of individual and group therapy, the way I see people has changed. I used to take them at face value. But then I began to see beneath the surface.

Take a bearded man in a suit parking his SUV, or a stern woman in a lab coat scolding nurses. They look like grown-ups.

A bearded child in a high-ranking job? Sounds absurd. Or is it?

You might feel confused when a respectable-looking man blocks the entire parking exit and says, wide-eyed, “Well, where else was I supposed to park? All the spots were taken. I’ll just be five minutes.” (Three hours later, his SUV’s still there.)

You wonder: “This can’t be real. Is he stupid? Malicious? Nuts?”

Thanks to a wise and kind therapist, I learned—well into my forties—just how childish I often feel and act. And I never saw it. Even when I had flashes of insight, I denied it.

The more I met the hungry, furious, wounded child inside me, the clearer I saw the same infantilism in others.

Turns out, 80% of adults are basically indistinguishable from kids.

Carl Jung once said, “People don’t have ideas. Ideas have people.” When a person is under the grip of an archetype, he doesn’t belong to himself. He demands admiration. He works nonstop. He stirs up drama without guilt. Conflict follows him like a shadow.

Strangely, that makes life a little easier. It’s one thing to watch a grown man explode in a fit of rage, it’s another to see a child, unloved and overwhelmed, throwing a tantrum.

And if that’s true, maybe you speak to them differently. Choose your words with care. Even if these “kids” hold enormous power, their behavior won’t shock you as much.

“For they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Alone with Chaos / April 16, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

Some people widen their eyes when they hear about the existential loneliness of entrepreneurs. “What do you mean? It’s not like they’re stuck on a desert island. Let them talk to someone. Hear some advice. They’ve got spouses, friends, parents — even business partners, don’t they?”

How naive. Do you really think they haven’t tried?

Believe me, they’ve tried to share their pain with everyone. Over and over. But eventually, they stop. People just don’t hear them — for one reason or another:

Some are just exhausted — too many letdowns, for too many years.
Others don’t know enough about business to offer anything useful.
Some can't just sit in silence — they lack that kind of wisdom.
And others have too many problems of their own to take on someone else’s.

Even in professional circles, real help is rare:

A top manager sees only part of the picture — and chases his own goals.
A consultant knows business, not much else.
A therapist doesn’t get the intricacies and context of business.
A business club? Too risky to reveal the skeletons in the closet.

The founder is left alone with Chaos — fight or die.

If you give up, you’re a failure and a traitor — the one who let everyone down: your family, team, clients, investors, and even the strangers who projected their secret desire for success onto you.

Worse yet, you’ll know you missed a rare opportunity. That you failed to realize the massive potential that once shone in your hands. You were just this close. What was missing? Time? Money? Luck?

No. That’s all secondary.

The worst part is knowing that EVERYTHING YOU NEEDED WAS ALREADY INSIDE YOU.

The only thing missing was the “alchemical vessel" to turn your implicit knowledge into explicit form.

Transformation happens at a special time, in a special place.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Charged Space and Time / April 15, 2025 by Alexander Lyadov

From school—and sometimes even earlier—we're taught to see time and space as something uniform. Equal slices of seconds and centimeters measure our movement along fixed axes.

Historian of religions Mircea Eliade showed that ancient people saw space—and time—as either sacred or ordinary. A sacred place was “charged” because that’s where people encountered the divine. An ordinary space had nothing special—just the everyday routine.

For modern people, time is linear and irreversible. So there’s little motivation to study the past. But early humans saw time as cyclical. A past event could repeat itself. That’s why they not only remembered the beginning of things, but also re-enacted it through rituals—living it again.

In a sacred place, during sacred time, a person would immerse himself in the source of life and be reborn. That also meant his small world could be renewed. According to ancient myths, the cosmos decays in several stages, but then it’s reborn, and the cycle begins again.

We like to believe that over millions of years, everything has changed. We associate ourselves with countries instead of tribes, tame the atom instead of fire, and fire Tomahawk missiles instead of swinging stone axes.

The external changes are striking—but deep down, not much has changed. Has Cain given up his desire to kill Abel? Has society stopped hunting witches? Has the world stopped rocking dangerously from side to side, like a ship with a drunken cook at the helm?

Perhaps the future will reveal the true potential of each of us—and all of us—by creatively combining the intelligence of the present with the insight of the past.

Think about it—do you have a sacred place or time in your life?

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.